


Magic Beans and Truth Machines

by levendis



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: F/M, oldfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3381182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megan Wheeler and the indomitable Gorenandeames. Set during Season 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Beans and Truth Machines

  


  
  
  
  
  
Ross led Wheeler slowly into MCS. First the pitch: he bought her waffles at her favorite diner, said, "I know you're not much for the limelight, but I think you could do good work, and besides, I could use a friend up here." Later, the caveat: on her voicemail, "Logan needs a partner, and you fit the bill - but you might want to do some searching online, to prepare." By the time she stepped into the bullpen she had a good twenty minutes of Ross Pep Talk backing her up. She was good, she was ready, she could do this. Fuck, even Logan wasn't half as much a pain in the ass as he could have been.  
  
He never talked about Goren and Eames, but he didn't have to. Every precinct, every department has a story about them: how Goren licked a corpse or seduced a witness or read someone's mind; how Eames shot a perp from two blocks away, how she made some politician cry, how she's got her partner's back no matter what crazy stunt he pulls.  
  
Wheeler met Eames once and she can almost believe all the rumors, because Eames wears her gun with ease and her sarcasm even easier, all iron spine and long straight hair, older but like she'd never really be old. She doesn't remember what they talked about but Wheeler knows she fell a little in love and a lot in envy. The cop she couldn't be, the strength she might never have. And, if she were honest, those arms, that mouth, and that gun, and Ross doesn't have to tell her anything about Eames.  
  
Goren, now, Wheeler's never met. It's more Goren the Parable than Goren the actual man; Goren Who Doesn't Care What You Do For a Living, Goren Will Fuck Your Crime Scene Up, Goren is Seven Feet Tall and Lives in a Library, Goren Will Get You If You Don't Eat Your Vegetables. She knows he's got some crazy kind of solve rate, she knows a secretary who has a thing and a half for him. She's looked over his casefiles (Ross had sent over a sampling, a Greatest Hits of Major Case, back before she'd agreed to come with him), didn't understand half the references, didn't think she would've been able to solve the case given twice the time, was taken by (of all things) his sentence structure, his frequent use of the word 'however', how he didn't bother to establish B en route from A to C. She wonders what B felt like, if he had to work at it, or if the jump happened when he wasn't looking.  
  
She pictures him like that secretary described him: tall, thin, shoulders like she felt bad for his mother; a little crazy, a lot limber, a charmer but no one to get serious about. She wonders what he sounds like (how he says 'however'), if he makes enemies on purpose or just picks them up along the way.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She knows Logan because he asked her out to a drink the night before their first day together. He's got an interesting face. He's already drinking when she arrives, and he looks at her like he probably looks at the teenage daughters of women he dates. The morning, when he's sober, he just looks at her like he doesn't trust her not to run away or start crying. Ross puts an inconspicuous hand on her arm at least three times and she wants to punch him for all she appreciates what he's done. It's okay, she's doing fine, she's not actually that young, she just looks it.  
  
Logan ditches his desk for a grease-cart hot dog and after half a minute of pretending she wants to eat the salad she brought for lunch, she follows him. As the elevator doors close, someone kicks a foot through to re-open them, and she hopes, hopes against hope, that it's not someone who wants to chat or offer sympathy, because all she wants right now is quiet and fresh air and processed meat. The guy (six foot one thousand, thickly built, grey hair, and something about him makes her consider it) stumbles in carrying three books on chaos theory, one (disintegrating) book on child psychology, at least a dozen manila folders, and a well-used leather binder, all pressed to his chest like the information might fall out if he isn't careful. He doesn't notice her. She thinks, nah, can't be. The floors tick by.  
  
She thinks, hey, maybe, and tries to maneuver herself to where she could see his ID. She gives up when the elevator starts feeling a little too small and they're still at twenty-third and she can feel the heat coming off him, see him fidget like he's gotta get off this thing before the bomb explodes. She squeezes into the back corner and half-wishes she were the type of person who'd hit the emergency stop button, knock those books to the ground, climb up and kiss him goddamn senseless; is mostly glad that she isn't. He looks like he's about to shed his skin.  
  
  
Ground floor, the guard at the desk gives a quick "Hey, Goren!" and Goren (she thinks, huh, okay) nods and rushes out faster than any guy that size ought to be able to go. She makes herself not watch.  
  
"Wheewer," Logan yells at her from the front doors, chewing. "C'mon, we got a call."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The first time Wheeler actually meets Goren, it's because she's not supposed to be intimidated by other detectives, and she's not supposed to act like a blushing school girl (unless it's an undercover operation), she's an adult and adults do things like step forward and shake hands like you mean it. So she waits for Logan to wander off and Eames to go do, whatever it is she's doing today (whatever Eames does, Wheeler has noticed, she does with purpose, even if she's just going to the vending machine), and she vaults herself out of her chair and smooths down her shirt, goes over to his desk, and says, "Detective Goren? I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Megan Wheeler, Logan's new partner." She sticks out her hand.  
  
He looks up, and she gets a flash of that famed Goren stare, like she's the perp (her back up against the wall) and he's cataloging her, figuring out just how to take her down. Her mouth goes dry.  
  
"Welcome to the squad," he says - and it's not the voice she was expecting, and she starts to feel more normal and then a little ridiculous (come on, Wheeler, he's just another coworker, get over it). But then he leans closer and reaches out and she bites her lip against the feel of his hand closing around hers, warm and dry and surprisingly soft, she imagines her back against the wall and his hands around her wrists and then she pretends her cell phone is going off.  
  
"See you around," she gets out, and winces, and presses her phone to her ear as she walks as fast as is respectable to the elevators.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The first time they say more than a sentence to each other, Wheeler's in the cafeteria reading a court transcript and poking at the remains of her muffin. She half-hears, "Do you mind if I...?" then all of a sudden there's a wall of Goren in front of her. There's a banana, two things of chocolate milk, a partially-eaten sandwich, and biography of Yuri Gagarin on his tray.  
  
"You know much about the space program?"  
  
"Uh - "  
  
And he's off. She knows he and Eames caught the astronaut case, but all he's talking about is Russia in the 1950s. She just watches his hands fly around like pigeons, watches his mouth move, listens to his cadence. He doesn't say 'however'.  
  
He ends with, "He's quoted as saying - wait, where was it - right, right, uh, 'I looked and looked and looked but I didn't see God'. Looked and looked. It must be, uh, must be something else, up there. All that - emptiness."  
  
"You get down to it, it's not much different from being down here."  
  
"You never struck me as the cynical type, Wheeler," and before she can say _no that's not what I meant_ he's up with a muttered 'thanks' and it's not so much like he leaves as he's just not there anymore.  
  
A minute later, Eames sits down. She doesn't have anything with her, just says, "sorry, he does that sometimes." Smiles like she's got a secret.  
  
"It's okay, I didn't mind." Kinda liked it. Eames is wearing a tank top and Wheeler's distracted all over again.  
  
"He doesn't always notice when people aren't interested. You can tell him off, you know. Doesn't bother him."  
  
No, Wheeler didn't know that, and she feels like she's been given a gift. Been given _permission_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Ross calls them all in to remind them of the importance of _keeping him in the loop_. She likes Ross, really she does, but he hasn't quite found that subtle touch. He proclaims things. He means well. Logan is as quiet as she's ever known him to be; she doesn't know what he's thinking.  
  
Goren and Eames, she can feel the tension between them. She's heard rumors - they're fighting, they're breaking up, he's losing it, he's taking her down with him. But she knows Eames and she's seen Goren and they've got that partner connection, that click. Goren can read minds and Eames can read his, and he needs her, and Wheeler doesn't know exactly what she gets but whatever it is, it's worth it.  
  
Logan sighs loudly. Ross starts on subsection two, paragraph seven of Not Telling Me is As Bad As Lying. Wheeler, she's just waiting to leave so she can go do her job.  
  
And she watches them. Goren and Eames (Gorenandeames), inseparable even when they're fighting (she tries not to eavesdrop). They look ridiculous next to each other and they look perfect. Eames, sinewy and five foot nothing in heels, and Goren who's forever the tallest one in the room and currently wearing a shirt that might've fit twenty pounds ago. Wheeler rubs her palms dry against the hem of her sweater.  
  
(Wheeler's mostly average and Logan makes a career out of being a regular guy, and they get the job done, nothing spectacular, no leaps, no stunts. She wonders if you need that little bit of crazy to do something special.)  
  
  
Ross is wrapping up and she wants to tell him, don't expect too much, tell him, we're giving you what we can, and you'll never be a part of what they have, not really.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She's tucked into a corner by the janitor's closet with her phone burning her ear and her hand covering her mouth, trying to track down a man who knew a man who knew a man who might've known just what kind of man her father had been. When she hangs up, she pauses, and looks over, and there's Goren in his own corner (except he can never exactly tuck into anywhere), hand to head, talking quiet but hard to someone he doesn't have much patience for (she tries not to listen), she hears " _My mother is-_ " and then _"I can't"_ (she really, really should just walk away) and then he pulls his hand from his face and then, of course, sees her, sees her staring at him, and an expression comes over his face that she couldn't describe to the NYPD's best sketch artist. She flushes hard and turns tail to bury herself in credit card records.  
  
  
There's a rush of air and a shadow falling, and a hand slams down onto her desk, thumb to pinkie almost the length of a page.  
  
"Ya hear anything interesting?" Goren bites out.  
  
"I'm sorry." She doesn't look up.  
  
"Look, I don't want your -" He swallows audibly. He's so _close_. She looks at his hand.  
  
"I didn't hear anything you said if you didn't hear anything I said," and she tries to say it both flip and serious, like Eames would. It doesn't quite come off.  
  
"You - "  
  
She looks up then.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They wind up on the elevator again, together, alone. This time they're both empty-handed. He looks exhausted and on edge, and he's pressed up against the wall, watching her.  
  
"I don't quite know what to make of you, Detective."  
  
"Back atcha," she says, because she forgets how to put words together around him. Like it's a test she studied too hard for.  
  
"You've been...staring at me."  
  
She shrugs.  
  
"Do you, do you want - something?"  
  
She looks at him, smiles, and just says, "yeah."  
  
"Yeah? Huh."  
  
Wheeler starts weighing her options and their outcomes, then thinks about Logan, and, yeah, fuck it. She reaches over and slaps the emergency stop and kisses him quickly before the alarm starts hurting her ears, then starts the elevator again like she didn't just break a thousand rules. His lips were warm and surprisingly soft and she could reach if she stood on tip-toes.  
  
"The hell, Wheeler," he rasps out. "You can't just - "  
  
"I did just."  
  
He pulls her close and it's like she's caught in his gravity now, he's got a fistful of her shirt at her lower back and an almost-too-tight grip on her upper arm, bent over her, eyes bright. "Don't fuck with me, Wheeler."  
  
"Wouldn't dream of it."  
  
He lets her go, but she stays there, then mimics his pose: one hand clenched in the shirt at the small of his back, under his jacket, other hand wrapped around his arm as far as it will go, and drags herself as close as she can, cranes her neck up and smiles. She steps back as the doors open.  
  
"See you around, Goren," she says, and walks off.


End file.
